summer car temps a battery safety issue

just wondering if say, 150 plus degrees or so (its been 104/106 lately )in my truck cab are responsible for the AA alkaline ever ready cells leaking in my EDC light- went to use it the other night, the clicky tail switch was swollen up like a ballon! actually vented gas when I unscrewed it!! light stopped working cleaned as much corrsion out as I could by spraying automotive battery terminal cleaner in it and when dry , scrubbed thr I.D. with a copper gun cleaning brush -all OK! any thoughts or is this normal when dry cells leak??, thanks for your input in advancelovecpf

Welcome to the world of Alkalines. If there is something you can count on with Alkalines is that they WILL leak. They are not designed for temperature extremes whether it be High Heat or SUB zero. I hardly ever use alkalines because of this reason. I store a Surefire 6PL in the car with CR123 Lithiums and never had a problem with high or sub zero temperatures. They always remain fully charged and never leak. Lithium is the way to go for your automobile emergency or EDC lights. Just buy a pack of energizer lithium AA and you'll avoid that problem in the future. If you visit the Energizer site and look up the specifications they state: Perform in extreme temperatures from -40°F to 140°F. http://www.energizer.com/products/hightech-batteries/lithium/pages/lithium-batteries.aspx I don't know about over 150F but they seem to easily support up to 140F. I figure they should survive a little higher. My CR123's never had an issue in the car.

Temps inside your car, even in the glovebox, exceed what an alkaline can withstand even on mild days; see the data here: http://www.randomuseless.info/318ti/temperature/temperature.html

General rule of thumb: No alkalines or rechargeables in extreme heat or cold. Go with Energizer "Ultimate" Lithiums for your standard-cell flashlight, and store your light somewhere in the cabin that is nowhere near sun exposure (the door map pockets are one possibility depending on your car.)

In addition to some lithium battery lights in the passenger compartment of my car, I also have a m*glite and Kel-lite where the spare tire is. After reading some previous posts, I took the alkaline batteries out of them, and put the batteries in a cheap pyrex pie dish I got at a thrift store. At least if they go south, they won't ruin anything.

novice said:

I took the alkaline batteries out of them, and put the batteries in a cheap pyrex pie dish I got at a thrift store.

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Remember that your car flashlight can quickly become an emergency tool; if you run across a very bad car accident at night and someone runs up to you to ask for help, you might find having to reassemble your flashlight from different containers (with batteries that may not work) is not the best idea..

I took some measurements of temperatures in my car on a day when it was only 71.2F (about 22C) in the shade ... My car was left in the sun for a few hours.
The temperature of the dashboard top was 158.0F ... Inside the glovebox was 127.5F ... So bear in mind that the car is an oven even at only 71.2F air temperature.

On a window-cill inside the house , the temperature can be just as drastic.

Coolest place is probably in your pocket.

Coolest place in the car is in with the spare wheel in my car which is under the floor of the boot (trunk) ... Trouble is you have to get out of the car to open the hatchback to get at the lid to the spare wheel ... Hence I keep one torch in the glove compartment and one in the drivers door pocket ... The one in the glove compartment is a Trustfire F20 with AA Lithium primary cell and the one in the door pocket is a Romisen RC-U4 with three AAA Lithium primaries ... I also keep three AAA Lithiums and two AA Lithiums in the glove compartment as spares.

I do always have my two keyrings with iTP A3s fitted and my EDC iTP A2 clipped into my jacket pocket ... These all have Eneloops fitted.

I also found that under the front seats in the car is also less hot ... The top (inside) of the glove compartment is also quite a bit hotter than the bottom , so my Trustfire is in the bottom with a duster folded over it for extra insulation.

I suppose that if the dashboard was white instead of black then it would be cooler ... Even in the UK , on a very sunny day the dashboard can get too hot to hold your hand on ... The glove compartment would be even hotter than I measured.
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not that it is a good idea to leave batts in a hot car under any circumstances but alkalines wouldn't be my first choice. you would be best off w/ primaries. alkalines are just too unstable under any circumstances. QC is of limit benefit even if its premium brand...thats just the nature of their chemistry. fortunately you should never have to worry about a catastrophic failure w/ them but they will leak at some point regardless of their state of use. Li ions would be just downright suicidal, 'nuff said.

just remember, if you're gonna dish out decent money for a light then its best to dodge alkalines altogether. it's pretty aggravating to have a $0.20 battery ruin a $100 flashlight.

Alkies wouldn't be my first choice. I forgot about my old 4D mag which had alkies in it in my trunk and one of the batteries had leaked a little.

I've kept a Surefire E2e I've had for five or six years in my glovebox with the same set of CR123s in it for years and it always works fine.

WRONG FORUM

Moving it to the BATTERIES section...

stallion2 said:

not that it is a good idea to leave batts in a hot car under any circumstances but alkalines wouldn't be my first choice. you would be best off w/ primaries. alkalines are just too unstable under any circumstances.

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Are you referring to lithium primaries here? Alkaline cells are also primaries.

NutSAK said:

Are you referring to lithium primaries here? Alkaline cells are also primaries.

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correct... lithium primaries

hktome said:

just wondering if say, 150 plus degrees or so in my truck cab are responsible for the AA alkaline ever ready cells leaking...

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As far as I can tell, reading the contents of a box of cereal can cause alkaline cells to leak.

WDG said:

As far as I can tell, reading the contents of a box of cereal can cause alkaline cells to leak.

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The same reasons for alkalines leaking have been known to cause cancer in laboratory rats too.

Temp is the reason I swapped out all the lights in our cars to AA L91 driven lights. The only exception is my Casio camera. It uses a Li-Ion. Well, and the one in my work laptop.

So far so good but I wonder if one of those little solar powered fan deals that go in a cracked window would really help for the battery-conscious individual.

Edit -- that one link with the BMW info was great. Looks like the trunk might be a good place to leave the company laptop. Now what to do with the camera.... glove box I guess is the next best. (I Like to keep it close incase I see something to get a pic of.)

I've kept an old 3d maglite incandescent in the cab of my truck (under the seat) loaded with alkaline batteries since 2002, same ones I bought with the light. They still look new, exp 2009, but still work and reveal no threat of leaking. :nana:

I think keeping them under the seat insulated them from much of the heat. My truck is never garaged or in the shade. If it were in the glove box, I think they would have popped during their first summer.

In my experience, extremely cold weather will cause alkalines to leak. In general, they are not good to keep in the car, ever.
I kept a 3D Mag year around and something made it leak, not sure if summer or winter or both.

One idea is to keep the cells separate, outside of lite.